What Matters Most
by lobotimiss
Summary: AU Katara has always been different and he's understood her all her life. It seemed logical that they should be married. But when happiness is fleeting and dishonor is brought upon their house, will what used to matter hold any weight? KataraX...read to see! TRIGGER WARNING: Domestic Violence Based on the Zutara Week 2013 Prompts Rating Subject to Change
1. Calor

Katara knew that she was spoiled. Spoiled by her husband's energy as it radiated out around him every night in the form of sweet, lucrative, heat. She would huddle at his front and they would embrace, swathed in their furs and entangled in each other and they would never freeze, not even in the darkest of winters.

If Katara loved Arlek for nothing else, it was that he was a firebender and thus, the was warm.

In the southern water tribe, firebending children were rare but possible. Soldiers that had come years ago to take all the waterbenders away had naturally, brutally raped many women, introducing their genes into the community. Arlek was the second of his kind in his family and though there was no one to teach him, he was quite a prodigy. Katara noticed him from a young age, noticed the way that the other kids singled him out for his gift. They were the only benders in their tribe and because of that, they were similar.

When her mom died he held her in his arms for hours in her hut with her family and she screamed for him not to leave when Gran Gran was shooing him out. He was older than her of course, a year Sokka's senior, and nine to her small six. They were friends all through childhood and young adulthood, always looking out for each other, always being there. Though Arlek was stoic and strong, she knew he was there for her. And in the end, in the harsh conditions of the South, that was all that mattered. Safety, Security.

Warmth.

When she was fifteen he asked for her hand. Well, he asked her father who agreed grudgingly and not without bribery to allow the union and her father expected that she was in agreement. No matter how good a man Arlek was to her, he would always be a Water Tribe man to the core, set in his beliefs and practices, set as the iceberg fated to forever float the sea.

Hakkoda had been opposed to their marriage, arguing that any kids they have would likely be firebenders and what they needed were pure waterbending kids.

Katara didn't care. Arlek understood what nobody else could. Arlek understood being alone.

So that winter they were married and for the few days, when they had to sleep in a tent on the outskirts of town, she learned the meaning of cold.

It was a honeymoon of sorts, a time to go off and get pregnant but Katara wasn't ready and he knew and respected that, and he'd wait till she was. He'd wait forever if he had to.

So the nights in the hut weren't spent in throes of passion, but in a shivering pile of furs on the icy ground where no fire he could light could melt the cold away.


	2. Euphoria

When they were back in the village, their families had built an igloo for them, and a fine one at that. Thick furs draped over the packed clay floors and deep blue cloth hung in swathes and separated rooms. Unlike some other newlyweds she knew of, she wouldn't have to crouch or crawl in her own house to get around and she (and even Arlek at his tall stature) would have no difficulty standing up straight everywhere. There was a full kitchen area with a water basin and cast iron pots that had been pre-spiced –Gran Gran was a magician in the kitchen, Katara swore it—and were ready to cook on immediately.

But it wasn't the inside of the house that was her favorite.

Her only true solace since her mother's death had been her family and her bending. Now that she was losing one, they wanted to make sure she didn't lose the other.

In the back of her house was a full training setup, completely covered in a dome of densely packed ice. There were areas for healing and long-range combat and hand to hand. Not that she would ever see the battlefield. She suspected that this was more for her sons than for her, but still, when she entered with Arlek she couldn't hide her joy. She jumped up and down and was a child again immediately. She hugged Sokka until he was blue because this architecture was certainly his genius, Gran Gran because she was the only one knowledgeable enough about northern bending styles to make the healing dummies and supply the right tools and books for her practice and her father because it was more than likely that he put up most of the funds for the project.

Her family made sure she had the best of everything all he life and now, even when they were giving her away, they were still looking out for her.

She would miss them.

A/N: "Where the fuck is Zuko!?" Patience is a virtue kittens. XP

Signed, Lobotimiss


	3. Voices

Katara was right in thinking that her little family was soon to end. Because her duties around her new household were steadily piling up to much higher tasks than she was used to at home when it was she AND Gran-Gran.

Sokka and her father didn't keep rowdy, uncultured friends that tracked sleet everywhere but, to her woe, Arlek did. Three of them, great oafs all. But there was one who was worse than the rest, a skinny little thing, smaller even than her. She didn't know how he held up a spear to hunt without breaking himself in half. As she washed dishes in the basin she laughed quietly at her own joke. That was all she had nowadays. She was used to laughing all the time with her father and Sokka around but Arlek was serious and pensive and "joke" wasn't in his vocabulary at least not where _she_ was concerned. She finished and walked out of the room without excusing herself because this was her house after all. The men were guests here and if they wouldn't respect her, then she wouldn't respect them.

She could feel the stillness as she left, icy on the back of her neck. She didn't care. She would let the men be angry. What would they do with Arlek there to defend her? She hummed away as she pulled on her boots and coat and made her way out to her training room out the back door.

She heard their outraged voices and rolled her eyes guiding the glowing liquid through the chi trails around the dummies body. She was in another world now. She was untouchable, unshakable.

She heard nothing but her own voice laughing softly at the men's outrage, and the shlosh of the water in the dummies chi.

She liked to imagine that it was laughing too.


End file.
